Garden a showpiece for social inclusion

Posh and pristine, corporate and jolly, the Chelsea Flower Show is not generally thought of as an event that tackles gritty social issues and embraces the excluded. This year, however, homeless people and prisoners have helped to construct a major showpiece garden.

The Key, as the garden is called, is the product of an ambitious collaboration between 20 homelessness agencies and the Eden Project, the Cornwall-based environmental charity. It is funded by Places of Change, a programme to improve services for homeless people, run by the Homes and Communities Agency.

The Key grew out of a drive by Howard Jones, director of human networks at Eden, to wed green issues with social inclusion work. "You can't have sustainability until society works inclusively," he insists.

So what's the concept behind it? A "unique blend of art and design, gardening and social action", the garden speaks metaphorically, explains Jones. Its labyrinthine construction suggests that "anyone can lose their way and end up homeless". A 65ft-long wall symbolises the discrimination and disadvantage faced by those who do.

And yet the Key's central message is one of hope. The pathway through the garden is strewn with keys symbolising "the power to unlock potential", Jones explains. "It takes visitors along a narrative journey, beginning with bare, sharp and ragged thistles until a clearing - the place of change - ushers in a sense of triumph over adversity, with soft-edged colourful plants and flowers."

More important than the garden itself, however, are the people and processes that led to its creation. Inmates from six prisons grew plants, and the national umbrella charity Homeless Link also arranged for homeless people from around the UK to grow plants and visit Chelsea, where they helped with on-site construction and landscaping. The aim was to give participants confidence, a sense of achievement and inspiration, as well as vocational skills.

Lucy Frew, 39, says working on the garden has turned around her life. She helped lay foundations and build a flower wall with a group led by the Shekinah Mission, a homelessness charity in Plymouth. "I didn't think I'd enjoy gardening, and I always believed Chelsea was for the elite, but doing that flower wall just sparked something in me," she says. "Looking at it finished, I had a big grin on my face. I was well chuffed!" Now Frew has left her days of drug misuse behind and has begun a plastering and brickwork diploma with Shekinah. She hopes to start her own plastering business.

Andrew Wright, 34, got involved through Faith Lodge hostel for homeless people in Leeds after having problems with alcohol addiction. He grew cabbages and kale among the 10,000 plants that now make up the garden. "I learned quite a bit," says Wright, who is applying to do a national diploma course in horticulture. "It's nice seeing something grow and knowing you had a part in it. It's a certain amount of responsibility and a good, healthy way to occupy time outdoors."